Today it has one of the 20 largest paid circulations in the United States.[5] Throughout the 1990s and as recently as 2010, the paper has won nine Pulitzer Prizes for reporting and photography, George Polk Awards for education reporting and regional reporting, and an Overseas Press Club award for photography. The company has its headquarters in Downtown Dallas.[6]

History

The Dallas Morning News main printing plant and distribution center in Plano, Texas.

In 1904, The Dallas Morning News began publishing the Texas Almanac, which had previously been published intermittently during the 1800s by the Galveston Daily News. After over a century of publishing by the Morning News, the Almanac's assets were gifted to the Texas State Historical Association in May 2008.[7]

In late 1991, The Dallas Morning News became the lone major newspaper in the Dallas market when the Dallas Times Herald was closed after several years of circulation wars between the two papers, especially over the then-burgeoning classified advertising market. In July 1986, the Times Herald was purchased by William Dean Singleton, owner of MediaNews Group. After 18 months of efforts to turn the paper around, Singleton sold it to an associate. On December 8, 1991, Belo bought the Times Herald for $55 million, closing the paper the next day.

It was not the first time the Belo family had bought (and closed) a paper named The Herald in Dallas.

[In]...1879 Alfred H. Belo was investigating the possibility of establishing a sister paper in rapidly developing North Texas. When Belo's efforts to purchase the Herald [an extant paper in Dallas] failed, he sent George Bannerman Dealey to launch a new paper, the Morning News, which began publication on October 1, 1885. From the outset the Morning News enjoyed the double advantage of strong financial support and an accumulation of journalistic experience, and within a month and a half had absorbed its older rival.[8][9]

Logo forAl Día

In 2003, a Spanish-language newspaper was launched by The Dallas Morning News, called Al Día. Initially Al Día came with a purchase price, but in recent years the newspaper has been made available free of charge. It is published twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday.[10]

Between 2003 and 2011, a tabloid-sized publication called Quick was published by The Dallas Morning News, which initially focused on general news in a quick-read, digest form, but in later years covered mostly entertainment and lifestyle stories.

In late 2013, The Dallas Morning News ended its longtime newsgathering collaboration with previously-co-owned TV station WFAA. The newspaper entered into a new partnership with KXAS at that time.[11]

Historically, the Morning News has tilted conservative, mirroring Texas? drift to the Republican Party.[12] However, on September 7, 2016 it endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, the first time it had endorsed a Democrat for president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.[13] This came a day after it ran a scathing editorial declaring Republican candidate Donald Trump "not qualified to serve as president." It was the first time that the paper had refused to endorse a Republican since 1964.[14] Then, in wake of the approaching 2018 Midterm Elections, the Morning News once again endorsed a Democratic candidate in that of Beto O'Rourke, the challenger to incumbent Senator Ted Cruz.[15]

In late 2016 it was announced that The Dallas Morning News would move away from its home of 68 years on Young Street, to a building on Commerce Street previously used by the Dallas Public Library for its downtown branch. The Commerce Street address is one-third the size of the Young Street complex. Reasons given for the move included technology innovations, fewer staff, as well as printing presses no longer co-located with the newsroom and main offices (printing is done now mainly at a facility in Plano, north of Dallas).[16][17] By December of 2017, the move was completed.[18] The former property at 508 Young was sold by October 2018 to a business partnership, which was looking into possible redevelopment opportunities for the complex[19][20], but in December 2018 the partnership backed out of the deal.[21]